1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an information processing apparatus and an information processing method communicating with another apparatus via a network, and an information processing system including the information processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
As an example method for meeting participants who bring their ideas, a method which may be called a “K-J method” is known. (The K-J method is named for its inventor's name.) In the K-J method, to bring ideas, the participants write their ideas on sticky notes, place the sticky note on a place where every participant can view, and then rearrange the positions of the sticky notes one after another during the meeting for grouping the ideas.
However, such rearrangement of (i.e., moving and arranging) the sticky notes is time-consuming work. Namely, this is an obstacle to carry out the K-J method. To resolve the problem, several techniques are known reducing such workload by computerizing the meeting to bounce ideas off each other in methods including the K-J method.
To reduce the workload, for example, there is a known technique to display documents input by the participants using pen tablets onto a shared screen by sending a scene of the participants among the participants, so as to conduct a brain storming session (see, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. H06-311510).